"I find myself swimming against the current, and you can't do that. If you can't join them, get off," she added.

“They say adapt or die. At my age, I feel I can’t adapt, because the new age is not an age that I grew up to understand.

"I see everything as cutting corners. All the old-fashioned ways of doings things have gone.”

She went on to say that although she did still find pleasure in some aspects of her life, she feared this would soon be lost.

She said: “My daily action to feed birds in the garden is a joy.

"However, my lack of strength and energy and declining health is a life with no enviable future. My life has been full, with so many adventures and tremendous independence.”

She passed away after ingesting a fatal dose of barbiturates on March 27.

Niece Linda said: “I was right beside Anne, holding her hand from the time she took the barbiturate to her death. Unless you die in your sleep, beside the person you love, or in their arms, I cannot think of a better death.”

Dr Michael Irwin, from the Society for old Age Rational Suicide, said: "She decided the present world was less and less what she liked, which included everything from people not being polite to an obsession with people acquiring 'stuff'.

"She was a feisty old lady who wanted to go out with a bang, not a whimper."

More than 200 Brits have died at Dignitas since the organisation launched in 1998 near Zurich.

Assisted suicide is illegal in the UK and those who help someone die can end up serving a 14-year prison sentence.